[MD] MD FW: The intellectual level and rationality

[skutvik at online.no]

Paul 

On 8 Dec. you wrote:

> I accept the definition of metaphysics as a branch of philosophy.  To
> try to move this forward, what is the definition of metaphysics that
> you are using?

I use LILA's definition:

    As long as you're inside a logical, coherent universe of 
    thought you can't escape metaphysics. 

> Paul:  Yes, and if you read on into the paragraph you started to quote
> you will see that that the different view of intellectual truth is:
 
> "But if Quality or excellence is seen as the ultimate reality then it
> becomes possible for more than one set of truths to exist.  Then one
> doesn't seek the absolute "Truth."  One seeks instead the highest
> quality intellectual explanation of things..."
 
This paragraph says - as said before - that from Q reality seen 
SOM is transformed into the static intellectual level. "Many truths" 
is an oxymoron. What would the judicial system turn into with 
such premises? 
 
> Paul:  DQ/SQ is the Quality reality but the MOQ and reality are not
> equivalent.

Well, no-one can stop you from repeating this, but as said, 
Pirsig's rejection of the Quality=DQ/SQ disproves this.    

Bo earlier:

> >I have criticized the intellectual level -  it follows that the
> >standard way of "containing" SOM is equally faulty

> Paul:  No it doesn't follow from your criticism.
 
No?  If the 4th level is the S/O distinction it follows that it 
"encases" SOM. Look to the new discussion with Ian and Mike.   

Paul goes on:
> Then carbon compounds, being matter, exist inextricably and
> exclusively at the intellectual level. 

This looks uncannily like SOM's idealism, only now intellect 
serves as "mind" and the inorganic level as "matter".

> So, without intellect there is no carbon.  Without carbon there is no
> DNA. Without DNA there are no organisms.  Without organisms there is
> no society. Without society there is no language.  Without language
> there is no intellect.  Wait, do you see a problem here???

Why not take it all out and say that all levels are intellectual 
patterns? It's inevitable from your hotch-potch of quality terms 
and somish premises.           

> Paul:  Bo, you know as well as I do that Pirsig has rejected your
> claims time and time again and in the very letter which you claim
> proves you right. Need I quote the rejection again?

I know, but his comment about the SOL (percolating to the top if 
any good) is the most recent.

> Paul:  There is no such admission.  That the Greeks started the
> intellectual level in the west does not mean that it is forever SOM. 

If intellectual value was the S/O divide in Greece it must be so on 
Mars. Biological value isn't DNA or whatever was its first 
manifestation but LIFE. Intellect's first stirrings were as remote 
from the modern S/O as a virus is from a mammal organism but 
the same underlying value is present.  

But this is no problem, as you showed long ago there was an 
Oriental S/O era, it merely did not develop into a S/O 
metaphysics as it did in the West. A Quality-like development 
took over.   

> As I've argued before, and as I've recently said in another post a
> couple of days ago, any argument based on this 'fact' is fallacious
> until you can prove that SOM is the ubiquitous and enabling structure
> - the 'DNA' - of the intellectual level.  

I have just shown it. What is proof here? 

> I offer Nagarjuna's
> Mulamadhyamakakarika as a direct violation of the putative ubiquity of
> SOM in intellectual patterns.  Which brings us to...

Well if so Nagarjuna was an Oriental "Pirsig" who showed that 
the S/O template can't account for existence's dynamic aspect. 
He had a much easier job than RMP however.   

Bo